True. Although I'll argue that Jefferson was hypocritical to the core on the issue . He is after all the man who wrote "All Men are created equal".Johnson, was blinded by the world wide confrontation of communism and didn't understand that Viet Nam was a war of national liberation for the Vietnamese. And Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy before him made the same mistake. His accomplishments have had a lasting benefit.

John Adams, if I'm going to be America-centric about it, though I could have also chosen Martin Luther King jr. I think Pres. Adams is more underrated than LBJ.

Adams doesn't get enough credit for helping drag the American republic through its "wet cement" era. He put himself at great personal risk during the Revolution, but proved himself even handed in its run-up when he defended the British soldiers arrested for the Boston Massacre. I fault him for the Sedition Acts, of course, but otherwise he was a decent president. And he never owned slaves, unlike his friend and partner, Thomas Jefferson.

If I'm not going to be America-centric about it, I'd have to say yes, Mandela, or perhaps Gandhi. Gandhi led the liberation movement in India without putting its citizens through years of bloody revolution. Mandela acted similarly. Not saying you shouldn't revolt violently when repressed, but there are situations where it turns out to be a disaster.